Readers share their personal takes and stakes on the Bais Yaakov trajectory

To get a fuller picture of the impact and legacy of Bais Yaakov, we reached out to our readers and asked them to weigh in. How did Bais Yaakov shape them? What’s still left to improve and achieve? How does the current iteration differ from their own experience? And did those years in the classroom equip them with the tools for a vibrant frum life?

At a Glance

Our oldest respondent was 87

Our youngest respondent was 17

Half the respondents were over 50

When asked which value Bais Yaakov encourages more — conformity vs. thinking for yourself

77% chose conformity

12% chose thinking for yourself

11% feel there’s a good balance between the two

Students at Bais Yaakov of Baltimore stood out as saying their school really encouraged thinking for themselves.

46% of respondents said their Bais Yaakov prioritized ikrei emunah.

The 54% of respondents who said their school didn’t focus on ikrei emunah were mostly over 50 years old.

Our responses indicate that these lessons were not considered as vital then, maybe because they were so much closer to Churban Europa when the survivors’ emunah was so evident.

54% of respondents said no when asked whether Bais Yaakov encourages lasting relationships with teachers.

My daughter’s Bais Yaakov experience was different from mine in that …

• My daughters’ schools were more elitist, limiting acceptance to a select few. I was very disappointed by that. (age 69)
• My daughters are more aware of red flags to look out for when in shidduchim. (age 69)
• My girls were not taught too much about culture and arts and literature. (age 67)
• It’s mostly the same, except they had more intense textual study. (age 60)
• My daughters went to the same school that I did, but they had many more extracurricular activities and more interschool events such as technology asifos and shemiras halashon programs. School Shabbos and the play were much grander productions for them. (age 58)
• Schools today are more attentive to the needs of each individual student, both academically and emotionally. (age 58)
• In my day there was much more diversity. We didn’t have uniforms. Because we weren’t a huge school, we always made sure quieter girls felt included. (age 55)
• We had the same teachers! But my daughter had a mechaneches and in my days we didn’t have that. My daughter’s teachers were very involved in trying to socially engineer friendships (not very successfully, either). That didn’t happen in my times. (age 53)
• I don’t remember thinking the rules were harsh or not important. I think today there are more rules, given without explanation, and they don’t come across as being designed for the girls’ well-being. (age 52)
• They had/have much better teachers than I had — more interesting, more in touch with the kids. (age 52)
• There’s a stricter dress code and more punishment. There are many more formal hashkafah classes now and more opportunities for girls to shine in and out of the classroom. (age 49)
• Girls today have much more input and more of a desire to connect and form relationships with teachers. (age 49)
• They don’t learn anywhere near the volume of information we did. (age 47)
• There’s a big pressure to go to Eretz Yisrael for seminary, which we didn’t have when I was in high school. (age 46)
• Their teachers present a much more black-and-white view of a Torah life. (age 46)
• Today’s generation has different challenges. I think we worked harder academically, which isn’t necessarily required to succeed in life, but does develop a resilience that girls today don’t have. (age 45)
• they make some of the experiences more like a camp than school, such as by playing loud music during lunch. (age 44)
• There’s less questioning allowed. (age 44)
• There’s so much PEER PRESSURE! There’s no such thing as being yourself.  Everyone has to look exactly the same and do the same things. (age 43)
• The swag! (age 40)
• Twenty to 25 years ago, the schools were smaller and there was a more unified feeling with an emphasis on schoolwide programs and singing. I had opportunities to see older girls up close and strive to be like them. There was also a Bais Yaakov convention that included almost all the Bais Yaakov schools and gave you a connection to them. Now the frum world has expanded and both within a specific school and within the Bais Yaakov world, it’s harder to feel connected and part of a larger mission. (age 39)
• There’s an understanding that not every girl needs to fit into an exact mold. They’re much more willing to accept and even celebrate individuality today. (age 34)
• There’s more glitz and extracurricular activities. At the same time, the younger teachers are more therapy-happy and less willing/able to put in the extra work for a challenging student. (age 33)
• Nowadays there’s more emphasis put on showing the girls how Yiddishkeit is the best way to live. (age 31)
• The school has exploded in size and my daughter doesn’t have the same experience of knowing everyone in the school that I had. She barely knows everyone in her grade. (age 54)

Conformity vs. thinking for yourself. Which does Bais Yaakov encourage more?

• The Torah is the same for everyone. Conformity is central to Yiddishkeit. Within the framework of Torah, one should use her common sense in implementing the halachos into her life. (age 55)
• Bais Yaakov, as every large institution, probably encourages conformity, but “thinking for yourself” should be part of the chinuch of the home. (age 61)
• Conformity is the air we breathe today. Not sure if that’s because of Bais Yaakov or frum society in general. (age 46)
• I don’t know what they encourage, but the girls are desperate to conform. (age 39)

With all the issues that were successfully “conquered,” what challenges remain for Bais Yaakov to address?

• We need a Kiddush Hashem program for when they go out in the world!
• We need a new way to understand tzniyus, crucial for when they get married.
• The kollel system was introduced in our days. Back then it was a new concept to live a kollel lifestyle. The challenge today: The kollel system was baruch Hashem so successful, they need to correct certain things. Not every girl will marry a gadol hador, and the “support” that is expected from parents who can’t afford it is a big issue.
• I think for many in my community, tzniyus has already been “conquered,” but they’re not sure how to move on. If everyone is halachically tzanuah, does the teacher still have what to teach, or will she continue to stress hair lengths and necklines to a crowd that doesn’t need to hear this message? The best line I ever heard is that the best way to teach tzniyus is not to teach it. On a personal note, I’m not thrilled with a five-year-old who is being dressed by her mother anyway being taught tzniyus on a very external level. I’d rather wait for them to learn the exact halachos and minhagei hamakom at a more age-appropriate time. And there are many beautiful musagim relating to tzniyus that can be discussed in high school aside from a focus on dress.
• There’s a lot of confusion on a girl’s versus a boy’s role when it comes to Torah learning. We were all taught the line, “You’re not your husband’s mashgiach,” against the backdrop of how our portion in Olam Haba is dependent on how much Torah learning our husband/sons accrue, so that probably leaves people very confused.
• Our community does a bad job by allowing school to take over all of a girl’s life, which means a girl who doesn’t do well socially in Bais Yaakov isn’t doing well in life — and it can too easily spill over into spirituality.
• I think things are still presented as too black-and-white, when the world isn’t that way.  Kids see so much happening in the world and to people around them. More questioning needs to be encouraged and answers given, rather than just giving the message, “This is what we do and who we are.” We need to explain why this is the way.
• Bais Yaakovs around the world continue to be places where girls are judged based on very external qualities and questions are ignored and the questioners shunned.
• We need to teach them to think for themselves. I don’t mean, chalilah, not listening to gedolim! It’s just that my daughters and granddaughters were and are taught to listen, learn by heart, and repeat whatever they’re told by the teacher.
• When I was in school, every Yom Iyun was about tzniyus. Today, girls dress much more tzniyusdig, but the style is that way. With slits coming back in, we’ll know whether we have truly conquered this or just had a temporary reprieve.
• Chutzpah. It didn’t exist in our days.
• Girls are very knowledgeable.  We need to make sure they connect to the limud on an emotional level and that we teach practical topics like finances and shalom bayis.
• Girls are pressured today into outwardly doing what is expected, but aren’t necessarily internalizing basic hashkafic principles. On the other hand, everyone is so afraid of kids going OTD that real, uncomfortable, discussions are usually avoided. Our children aren’t given the chance to strengthen their resilience muscles. Yiddishkeit is not always fun and games. And there has to be a balance between the positivity of “Hashem loves me no matter what,” and “I have responsibilities as a Yid.” We’re creating a monster generation by coddling children by not denying them anything so their self-esteem isn’t damaged, and schools offering prizes and trips and over-the-top money-wasting activities.
• I feel the main challenge that needs to be addressed is more a cultural expectation to “have it all together” and “be perfect” that is prevalent in many prominent Bais Yaakovs. I feel like every girl would benefit if there was more room to be flawed and acknowledge the struggles everyone is facing.

How much emphasis was given to ikrei emunah in your school?

• It was wrongly assumed we knew it. The teachers who touched on these subjects in later grades were considered revolutionary and somewhat dangerous. (age 39)
• I don’t remember getting that in school. Emunah came from my home, my mother, grandmother, family. (age 84)
• In my experience, very little emphasis was given to Ikrei Emunah in any explicit or structured way. The focus was on halachah, tzniyus, davening, and proper behavior. Emunah was something I absorbed indirectly, through the atmosphere and through role models. Looking back, I think more direct teaching of the fundamentals of faith would have been invaluable, especially for girls like me who didn’t come in with a strong background. It would have helped me not only to practice but to understand and internalize what I was doing. (age 56)
• It was part and parcel of our classes, not a separate subject. (age 61)
• I remember an incident where a teacher labeled a girl’s question as kefirah — the next day, the principal came into the room and publicly apologized. Then her answered her question and made it clear it was okay to ask. (age 40)
• It depended on the teacher. We had a Chumash teacher who was a Holocaust survivor and emunah was part of every lesson because that is what enabled him to survive. The other teachers were also living examples of emunah, and we learned it from them without needing to discuss it. (age 75)

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 963)